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PetraG
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There does seem to be less fear of STDs in general and HIV in particular than there once was. The public only has so much attention span.
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edwest
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This anxiety is being artificially created.
I. THE QUESTION
"2. Recent years have seen new approaches to women’s issues. A first tendency is to emphasize strongly conditions of subordination in order to give rise to antagonism: women, in order to be themselves, must make themselves the adversaries of men. Faced with the abuse of power, the answer for women is to seek power. This process leads to opposition between men and women, in which the identity and role of one are emphasized to the disadvantage of the other, leading to harmful confusion regarding the human person, which has its most immediate and lethal effects in the structure of the family.
"A second tendency emerges in the wake of the first. In order to avoid the domination of one sex or the other, their differences tend to be denied, viewed as mere effects of historical and cultural conditioning. In this perspective, physical difference, termed sex , is minimized, while the purely cultural element, termed gender, is emphasized to the maximum and held to be primary. The obscuring of the difference or duality of the sexes has enormous consequences on a variety of levels. This theory of the human person, intended to promote prospects for equality of women through liberation from biological determinism, has in reality inspired ideologies which, for example, call into question the family, in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father, and make homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent, in a new model of polymorphous sexuality.
"3. While the immediate roots of this second tendency are found in the context of reflection on women’s roles, its deeper motivation must be sought in the human attempt to be freed from one’s biological conditioning.2 According to this perspective, human nature in itself does not possess characteristics in an absolute manner: all persons can and ought to constitute themselves as they like, since they are free from every predetermination linked to their essential constitution.
“This perspective has many consequences. Above all it strengthens the idea that the liberation of women entails criticism of Sacred Scripture, which would be seen as handing on a patriarchal conception of God nourished by an essentially male-dominated culture. Second, this tendency would consider as lacking in importance and relevance the fact that the Son of God assumed human nature in its male form.”
I. THE QUESTION
"2. Recent years have seen new approaches to women’s issues. A first tendency is to emphasize strongly conditions of subordination in order to give rise to antagonism: women, in order to be themselves, must make themselves the adversaries of men. Faced with the abuse of power, the answer for women is to seek power. This process leads to opposition between men and women, in which the identity and role of one are emphasized to the disadvantage of the other, leading to harmful confusion regarding the human person, which has its most immediate and lethal effects in the structure of the family.
"A second tendency emerges in the wake of the first. In order to avoid the domination of one sex or the other, their differences tend to be denied, viewed as mere effects of historical and cultural conditioning. In this perspective, physical difference, termed sex , is minimized, while the purely cultural element, termed gender, is emphasized to the maximum and held to be primary. The obscuring of the difference or duality of the sexes has enormous consequences on a variety of levels. This theory of the human person, intended to promote prospects for equality of women through liberation from biological determinism, has in reality inspired ideologies which, for example, call into question the family, in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father, and make homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent, in a new model of polymorphous sexuality.
"3. While the immediate roots of this second tendency are found in the context of reflection on women’s roles, its deeper motivation must be sought in the human attempt to be freed from one’s biological conditioning.2 According to this perspective, human nature in itself does not possess characteristics in an absolute manner: all persons can and ought to constitute themselves as they like, since they are free from every predetermination linked to their essential constitution.
“This perspective has many consequences. Above all it strengthens the idea that the liberation of women entails criticism of Sacred Scripture, which would be seen as handing on a patriarchal conception of God nourished by an essentially male-dominated culture. Second, this tendency would consider as lacking in importance and relevance the fact that the Son of God assumed human nature in its male form.”
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JimG
Guest
Society is in fact largely in denial. In denial not only about family and marriage and men and women, but about reality itself. It is in denial about biology, about sex, about anatomy, about mothers and fathers and children. Men can be women. Women can be men. Marriage need not be marital. Any sexual act is permissible. Children are possessions or products or designer creations. Sometimes they are inconvenient and must be destroyed. It portends a disastrous future or no future.
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Thorolfr
Guest
When I was growing up, other kids might get called names occasionally, but not with the viciousness reserved for kids who were perceived to be gay. And some of those mean kids grow up to be just as vicious as adults. In my city, a gay man and his partner were confronted on a city street at night by several straight men when they were out walking a few years ago. They had anti-gay epithets shouted at them and one of the gay men was attacked and was beaten to death with a tire iron.
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edwest
Guest
Hope is the primary thing to remember. The media creates a lot of distortion. It spreads a lot of bad ideas. It tries to make popular certain things that no one should let affect them. Observe, Pray.
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PetraG
Guest
Working with high school students, I’d say that their overall anxiety level over everything is higher. They don’t just think they’re under more stress or act as if they’re under more stress. There are more of them honestly suffering from debilitating levels of stress. Really, you have to see it to believe it.This anxiety is being artificially created.
I don’t know about all of them, but some are definitely suffering from unrealistic ideas of success and failure. They treat set-backs and failures as more catastrophic than they are. They have unrealistic ideas of how much they “have to” accomplish. I don’t think they understand that contentment does not come from chasing perfection, achieving accomplishment after accomplishment, or being free of anything upsetting, but learning to live with things you think are not what you think they ought to be without getting into an emotional knot about it.
The unavoidable angst of adolescence has been severely aggravated, for lots of reasons. The ubiquity of marriages that split up, however, and the knowledge that jobs are insecure, both definitely feed into that. High school kids have both unrealistic ideas of how happy we can be in this life, but also some fairly sobering knowledge of how things can go wrong. They want to keep anything bad from happening to them by achieving enough or having the right self image or doing whatever “right” thing they have to do, but deep down they know a lot of the choices that will impact their lives deeply are out of their hands, too.
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edwest
Guest
Human beings have to be taught. And depending on what they’re taught and through which source is important.
- Parents and the family are the first source of basic education, including how to plan, and the difference between accomplishments and just doing well. Rules need to be established for life in general as young people get older.
- Schools can be a good or bad thing. The more wrong thinking, or confusing thinking, young people are exposed to can have a negative effect on them.
- “Being content with what you have” was a common way of life. If you have the basics and a bit more for a “rainy day” then a fast-paced, always wanting more kind of life is not needed. Would it be nice to have more? Yes.
- The media and computer games, present a distorted to a highly distorted picture of reality.
- The internet is certainly information overload to those who are missing the basics they need to live. It can help or hurt people.
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PetraG
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I edited my original post, but I think the anxiety in teens is a combination of a world that really is a far more uncertain place and competing segments of society promising that utopia could be realized if we had the right policies in place. I hope older adults know better, but sometimes I wonder if even people our age think that if we could just turn back the clock, the past would be happier if we were living it now than it was when we were living it then? (Since we know so much more now, surely it would be much worse.)
Teens know that your marriage can end and there might be nothing you can do to stop it. They know your job or even your whole industry can be eliminated, and there might be nothing you can do about it. The fantastic rate of every kind of societal change and the level of political conflict we have now? They have never known anything different. The cries on all sides that there is a culture war on and that there will be catastrophe if it is lost? They’ve never known anything different. Stable families being talked about as if they were curiosities, winners of some inscrutable lottery? That is the way it has always been for them. The virtual taking place of the real? They’ve always had that. It goes on and on…
That makes them very open to the idea that anything can change, that everything is up for debate, and so on. They’ve been raised in a house built on sand.
Teens know that your marriage can end and there might be nothing you can do to stop it. They know your job or even your whole industry can be eliminated, and there might be nothing you can do about it. The fantastic rate of every kind of societal change and the level of political conflict we have now? They have never known anything different. The cries on all sides that there is a culture war on and that there will be catastrophe if it is lost? They’ve never known anything different. Stable families being talked about as if they were curiosities, winners of some inscrutable lottery? That is the way it has always been for them. The virtual taking place of the real? They’ve always had that. It goes on and on…
That makes them very open to the idea that anything can change, that everything is up for debate, and so on. They’ve been raised in a house built on sand.
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edwest
Guest
A return to the past is not possible in a physical sense. The ideologies that compete against the truth have to be compared to the truth. “Everything is everything” is a false way to live. Good choices have to be made. From the Practical Catholic:
"Pope Benedict XVI goes on to say:
"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires. The church must defend itself against threats such as “radical individualism” and “vague religious mysticism”. [emphasis added]
Commentary by the Practical Catholic:
“Pope Benedict does not play language games, he is unconcerned with the postmodernist’s corner on untruth. Neither should we be. Notice how he calls relativism a “dictatorship” instead of agreeing that no values and no Truth are the way forward for society. What many fail to recognize is that imposing nihilism and arbitrary tribalism is a form of dictatorship. Where untruth or half truth is the common order, there can only be oppression. Political correctness has asked us to abandon our value-laden language and to pick up a new language proper to the secular forum. However, this secular newspeak is value-laden against the traditional claims of the Western world and as such, is a poison rather than a new order. We can and should bring our own conviction laden language to the table, if we’re going to have any sort of real dialogue at all. Misinformation and restrained convictions are not the proper building blocks for a democracy.”
"Pope Benedict XVI goes on to say:
"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires. The church must defend itself against threats such as “radical individualism” and “vague religious mysticism”. [emphasis added]
Commentary by the Practical Catholic:
“Pope Benedict does not play language games, he is unconcerned with the postmodernist’s corner on untruth. Neither should we be. Notice how he calls relativism a “dictatorship” instead of agreeing that no values and no Truth are the way forward for society. What many fail to recognize is that imposing nihilism and arbitrary tribalism is a form of dictatorship. Where untruth or half truth is the common order, there can only be oppression. Political correctness has asked us to abandon our value-laden language and to pick up a new language proper to the secular forum. However, this secular newspeak is value-laden against the traditional claims of the Western world and as such, is a poison rather than a new order. We can and should bring our own conviction laden language to the table, if we’re going to have any sort of real dialogue at all. Misinformation and restrained convictions are not the proper building blocks for a democracy.”
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Thorolfr
Guest
Radical individualism is an American tradition and the US is one of the most individualistic societies in the world. And I see more supporters of radical individualism here in CAF than most places.
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edwest
Guest
Of course you do. The Church is opposed to it.
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PetraG
Guest
(a) By the nature of marriage, it cannot exist between two persons of the same sex. (Can. 1055)Why can’t homosexual marriage be as blessed and holy as heterosexual marriage?
also see, the plain meaning of the Gospel: Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate (Mt. 19: 4-6).
(b) Homosexual acts are not holy. Yes, I know, I have seen many arguments that contend that the acts condemned in the Bible are something other than what exists between two persons of the same sex who are engaging in committed and consensual consort. The fact remains that Christians are very clear about what makes sexual consort holy. It cannot be accomplished between two persons of the same sex. The acts that can be accomplished between two persons of the same sex aren’t even holy when those occur between persons of the opposite sex! How is it possible that these same acts could be the basis for holy sexual consort between two persons of the same sex, then?
Two persons of the same sex can live in a way that is charitable and mutually supports the growth in holiness of both, but only if the relationship has no part in actions that are contrary to holiness. If those acts become the basis of the relationship, the relationship becomes not a pathway to sanctity, as marriage is intended to be, but rather an obstacle to holiness, instead. Therefore, a same-sex relationship based on acts contrary to a life of holiness is in no way the same as a heterosexual marriage between persons who do not engage in acts that are contrary to holiness or even a shared living situation between two adults who are chaste and do not allow their sexuality to be an obstacle to holiness.
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